Being self employed

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what are ten things that can help you start your own bussiness?

Not many people are made to be self employed. As my father says, he's self employed and he been so for 30 years. Frist of all there are no benefits and on tough year you can make little to no money. Sorry for all of the discouraging info, but business life is tough!

Well, you generally need some capital - starting money. If you don't have much, then a services business is the good way to go, where you offer your skills or labour - lawn mowing, gardening, cleaning, babysitting, tutoring, dog walking, that sort of thing. What do people in your area want to do but haven't got time to do themselves?

I don't think that is the knid of employment he is looking for.

You don't want to be self employed, you want to be a business owner

Being self employed is slightly different from an new business owner or euntrepeneur.Self employed quite literally means you work for yourself, generally those kind of jobs are things like builders, plumbers, electricians... Basically when you are the service your selling.Generally self employed people do fairly well, it depends on what skills you have but basically you need some sort of skill to be self employed. A business on the other hand you don't need skill. Business is all about taking risks. You don't have to be particularly clever to be sucessful in business you have to be willing to take risks. Its an important thing to think about. You have to be certain about taking the risk.Ok, here are important things to consider.Firstly, what type of business do you want? Are you going to be a service type business. Generally speaking the service sector is your best bet since you will just be buying and selling. Other sectors require large investments, both financially and interlectually.Once you have the idea, where are you going to locate yourself. If you business is a grocery store for example you'll want to locate yourself where there are lots of people, but generally if theres a lot of people about, rent for the property you work from would be higher due to greater demand. If you do something where people would be willing to travel for a bit (ie, a bike shop) you could probably locate your business out of town a bit where rent is lower.The most important part - Finance. Chances are your going to need a fair bit of capital. You will have to go somewhere like a bank with your idea - in detail and the'll decide if the risk is worth taking and will/may be able to set you up with some money. Banks will look at the risk. If the bank doesent beleive your idea will be sucessful, you'll have to make them beleive it will be otherwise they wont invest. Things to look at are other companies like the one you want to set up, if there sucessful, how are they? You need to make your bank manager think its an oppertunity that he simply can't pass up.Ok, now we have an idea, idea of location, and capital we now need to actually find our location. We know where to look now and we have a budget of how much we can spend on a property. Will you buy the property outright or rent, something worth looking into. The amount you pay will depend on how much the bank has lent you obviously. But like i said generally the better the location the higher the rent but in a lot of cases it may be worth spending that little extra for that little extra better location. Or if you set up in a rough area you can get a 'good' location cheap. Also, its worth keeping your ear to the ground and buy in a location where the area is improving as to buy may initially be cheap but in 5-6 years the property prices could have soured as the area has gotten better, safer etc. So in the long run your set.Stock. Since i am fixating on services you'll want to be selling something. Since i base my knowlage at what i learnt at collage mostly and have little practial experiance i don't really know how to get stock. There are 3 main routes i beleive. Firstly, buy from a supermarket type place. The'll sell cheaper than a sole trader possibally could. Secondly, preferabally is to goto special discount stores. Usually you'll need a card to goto these places but im sure its not hard to get hold of. The idea of these places is to buy in bulk and it works out pretty cheap. Probably the straitest forward way of buying cheap. Thirdly is directly off supliers, this is where im sketchy. I don't know how big businesses deal with small businesses since the amount of stock you buy will be nothing compaired to the big boys in your market.Layout. Soo many small convenience store places always look soo shabby. Spending a little time and money making your store locical, clean, tidy, etc will make a difference.Staff. Depending on the size of your store and your abilities as a manager you may need staff. I would say pick a few people who seem ambitious and customer orientated. If possibly if they previously worked for a large competitor the'll be a good bet as the customer service thing will be burned into their mind.Organisation. Theres a lot to keep on top of when running a business. Organisation is the key to efficiency.Keeping an eye on your accounts. Its obvious but as a general keep your costs as low as possible, don't buy stuff you don't need or that will continuously cost if not vital, also make sure you maximise profit by keeping a close eye on your rivals and try to show better value for money. That doesen't necesserily mean be cheaper, things like better customer service, a nicer store etc can all create better value, as is a good reputation.The next step.... If your doing well consider expansion. More stores, larger stores, look at moving from a sole trader to a partnership or a ltd or even a plc if you can. To become a PLC you need to pay lots of money though, i think it costs like £1m+ to become a plc.Theres a few things to consider. Theres not really a 10 tips thing for business its just being able to take the risk, being good with money, be able to sell things for a profit, be able to make enough money to make profit.Property. At the moment this is what im looking to. Property is a sure fire way of making money. Generally property goes up in value, plain an simple. For example, buy a property for £100,000 rent it out for a couple of years then sell. I don't know what the US property market is like at the moment but in 2 years on a £100,000 house you could realistically make £10,000-20,000. Also you get your rent money which would easily cover the morgage.For example. I'm planning on buying a place in spain. To buy will cost me £80,000-100,000. To rent i could easily make £200 a week. £8000/year from rent is quite possible. And since theres a large demand for holiday homes in spain as people from the UK, France and Germany are buying lots of holiday homes, i could expect to sell the property in 2 years for £140,000+So on a £100,000 property over 2 years:£40,000 profit on price rises£16,000 on rentalThats £56,000. After paying off the interest on the morgage, billls etc, tax, for 2 years of just owning a place, and you could pay someone else to rent it out for you you could be looking at £35,000-40,000 profit or over $50,000. Not bad since it literally pays for itself.Property plain and simply is good business, its a safe bet with a nice return. Its a risk but a low one at that. As long as you know your market its cool.

i wanna make my own programs and sell them to people online on a website if not that then i would bootleg DVD,s and CD,s

those jobs or being in Real astate

While I won't comment on the bootlegged media, I do think that being a freelance programmer is very difficult.Well, besides obviously needing a suitable machine(s) on which to program, first, of course, you must know some sort of computer language (I'll use c++ as an example since that's what I'm familiar with) and you need to know which platform/OS you're programming on/for. You'll also need a compiler to convert your code in binary commands that your computer can understand. A good compiler is rarely cheap (unless you're programming on Linux, in which case all hope of selling your programs will evaporate since that's a huge bastion of the open-source movement anyway), so you're looking at a rather large up-front investment if you're just starting out.Secondly, once you've decided the platform you're going to be writing for, you need to figure out the platform specific GUI commands (if you're going to make your program user-friendly, that is. Commandline based ones are great, but nobody's going to buy them) For example, in windows with c++ I know this means a lengthy and extremely convoluted ritual of system calls and library linking to just get a blank window up there. And of course, you have to consider what sounds, if any, you're going to use, and custom file formats and whatnot depending on what sort of program you're going to make. In c++, I'll admit I know very little about invoking soundcard harware commands, however, I do know that certain kinds of file i/o can be really confusing if you're not very experienced with programming. Heck, I've been using c++ for more than 4 years now, and I still make lots of mistakes that aren't always syntax related. It's also a good idea, if you're making a utility program, to know how to print WYSIWYG documents from the screen onto paper, which involves more system calls. And depending on the complexity and purpose of the program, you might also have to learn how to fork processes, which can also get very convoluted and confusing when you start having multiple forks. Basically, a programmer needs to know his stuff very very well before getting started on a comercial product.Thirdly, you need an idea. Sounds simple, but it's not. You need to come up with a program design that people will see a need for; that they've gotta have so badly that they'd actually buy it from you instead of going for a cheaper alternative, or resorting to software piracy. Making programs that complex, bug-free, and feature-rich is rarely a task suited to just one person, so you'd probably also need to employ several other programmers, if not a whole team of them. And when it comes to managing source files, allocating tasks to each programmer, and beta testing, things can get really complicated really fast, so you need to have superb managerial skills. And even before you get to the programming, you have to have it completely worked out in your head (or on paper, in a diagram, as the case may be). All good programs start with elegant, yet efficient designs. You're going to get nowhere fast if you don't have a developed plan, or if it's a bad one.Fourth, and possibly the most important, after you've finished writing these programs of yours, you need marketing. Nobody's going to buy your programs if they don't know about them. This doesn't mean just making a website to host them, but also getting the word out that your company actually exists. And obviously you'll have to convince people to buy yours over someone else's; you need to show them that yours is best and most efficient, without actually giving them a full version of the program to try out. What I'm trying to say is that you need to use the right kind and amount of bait to hook your fish, otherwise they'll get away.So... really what I'm trying to say is that starting your own small software development company is very difficult; you have to have a lot of spare money on the side to support yourself in addition to the funds just to start the company since you may or may not have a marketable product for several months after founding it. Basically, it's a huge risk, and I personally wouldn't recommend it as primary employment in the beginning. Remember, starting your own business, no matter what you're selling, is definitely a tough thing to do.